George Gittoes –  Biography

George Gittoes is a major Australian artist, photographer and filmmaker. For nearly four decades he has documented some of the world’s most notorious conflicts. From the killing fields of Bosnia to the brutal massacres of Rwanda, Gittoes has documented the best and worst of the human condition. He has worked alongside Marie Guevara in Nicaragua in ‘Bullets of The Poets’ and travelled to Iraq to make ‘Sound Track to War’ and ‘Rampage’. ‘Miscreants of Taliwood’ saw his first meeting with extreme Islam in Pakistan. In ‘Snow Monkey’ he went deep into the world of the street gangs of Jalalabad.

From the beginning, his works have typically reflected his social, political and humanitarian observations of man’s treatment of his fellow man.

Gittoes has been described variously as a pop artist, a figurative artist, a modernist and a post-modernist. Ultimately he is a documenter. Through drawing, painting, filmmaking and the written and spoken word he reflects and tells the stories of what he has seen and experienced.

Acclaimed as one of Australia’s most important artists, in 2015 he was awarded the Sydney Peace Prize in recognition of his life’s work in contributing to the peacemaking process.

As an artist, he has received critical acclaim. In 1995 he was awarded the Blake Prize for religious art for one of his most important paintings ‘The Preacher’. In 2008 he was awarded and honouree Dr of Letter by the University of NSW.

His work has been collected by the Queensland Art Gallery, the State Gallery of New South Wales, the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, the Powerhouse Museum and the National Gallery of Australia. George has been widely collected by the regional galleries throughout Australia.

In 2016 Gittoes was a finalist in the Sulman Art Prize at the Art Gallery of NSW.

In 2019 Gittoes was a finalist in the Dobell Drawring Prize #21 at the National Art school.

The artworks below are for sale by the Australian artist George Gittoes